There exist many ways to distribute encrypted content, which has audio information, video information, text information, binary files etc. to users, while making sure that the users pay some fees to a content provider. The straight forward way is that the user acquires an encrypted file and buys the key for decrypting the file at the content provider. Using the key, the user can decrypt the file to use a decrypted version of the content. This process of acquiring the key might also be referred to as authentication or activation or as acquiring or being provided with a license of the encrypted content. The buying of the key can be performed electronically via the internet. To this end, the user normally accesses a license provider website or an online shop website and answers several questions on his name, email address, address, telephone number, sex, credit card number etc. Thus, the user has to fill in a lot of personal information so that the content provider has enough information to make sure that any fees for the content can be collected from the content buyer.
There are, however, severe limitations in this concept, since an increasing number of internet participants are very reluctant to send their email address to a site, from which the user does not know anything with respect to confidence, etc.
In general, obtained licenses are only valid for a restricted number of computers or user devices. Accordingly a user is not allowed to transfer the protected content to other devices and it is, for instance, very difficult for a user to obtain licenses for other user devices, which might be situated at different places, e.g. in an office, a private home, a car or a secondary residence.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method, a system and a server for accessing protected content on a user device which gives a higher flexibility to the user to access the protected contents on different user devices. This object is solved by a method according to claim 1, a system according to claim 11, a license server according to claim 14 and software module according to claim 15.
Further details of the invention will become apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuing description.